Awareness towards urinary schistosomiasis and its relation with active infection among primary school students in North Kordofan State, Sudan 2022

Background: Schistosomiasis is a water-borne parasitic disease caused by trematode worms of the genus Schistosoma. It is one of the neglected tropical diseases (NTD) with Africa accounting for at least 90% of those seeking treatment for schistosomiasis.

Objectives: This study intends to evaluate the prevalence of active Schistosomiasis in school children, as well as their awareness, attitude, and behavior toward the illness in El-Rahad province; which is situated in North Kordofan state, the absence of rivers in the region renders inhabitants dependent on the freshwater lake (Al turaa), a man-made reservoir that collects rainwater.

Methods: This facility-based analytical cross-sectional study among 424 primary school children aged seven to 13 in five villages; Structured and pre-tested questionnaires were used to collect the data in face-to-face interviews, in addition, urine samples were collected from each pupil and then assessed microscopically for S. Haematobium eggs Presence. Data was analyzed using SPSS version 25.0

Results: A total of 424 primary school students, from five villages; participated in the study. Almost all the students (96%) had poor knowledge about urinary schistosomiasis, causative agent, transmission, presentation, complications and prevention. 94% of students were found to have a positive attitude regarding seeking medical help and receiving treatment of schistosomiasis. Regarding practices, the most frequent poor practice was fetching water from ponds/streams (89%), followed by swimming or bathing, washing clothes or utensils in water sources (75.1%). In general, 100% of the students had poor practices. Attitude revealed that females have lower chance of having the infection than their male counterparts, p-value 0.01 About 27% (n=115) of them had active urinary schistosomiasis infection at the time of the study.

Conclusion: The study revealed poor level of awareness and knowledge, positive attitude, and poor practices among primary school students. There was also a high level of active infection which was significantly associated with being a female and resident of particular villages such as Tendelti.

Audience Take Away Notes:

• Exposure to the Sudanese rural areas practices.
• Knowing about schistosomiasis as an endemic disease in Sudan.
• Signify the importance of health education programs as tools of simple intervention for critical healthcare problems.

Lina Hemmeda is a fifth year medical student from Sudan. Focusing on solution-based actions she found herself melting into leadership and NGOs environments,taking numerous roles as a research and science advocate, and as an activist in evidence-based practice. She had over three years of research experience with articles published in pubmed indexed journals.